We’ve started our Quest campaign and I’m having a lot of fun (as the GM). I really appreciate 1) how easy it is to build encounters because the math is super chill and 2) that you just choose an enemy type (boss, minion, or npc) and that simply tells you how strong they are. So what an enemy looks like and does is almost entirely flavor or at least informed by it. I’m a big fan. Also, as a result, we’re using Dragon Quest sprites for as many monsters as possible.
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The unfortunate side effect of having so much fun with this game is that I’m eager to build out and play more than usual.
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also we just had one of the best most hilariously satisfying encounter resolutions I’ve ever had in a TTRPG and it’s only been 2 sessions XD
(and I’m not just saying that because I was in a shrub the whole time)
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ttrpg freaks (fond), what are your favourite worldbuilding games? I’m planning a campaign of Girl by Moonlight for a few friends and my favourite campaigns have always had a worldbuilding game upfront. I love sharing world creation among players like that.
I will say up front I’m considering Quiet Year (ofc. a classic) and also Downfall (played it before with a different group, liked it), but very keen to hear if you have other recs/ideas.
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I’ve poked around with World Maker after getting it in the Racial Justice bundle and it seems neat. Has you start by generating some important people in the world, and using card draws to determine how detailed each person is (Each NPC draws a card and then that first card determines how many further cards they get, with each suit/number combination relating to something else).
The downside is that it’s less like, complete of a generator than something like The Quiet Year, but it’s interesting if you like to have a good starting point, and then ask yourself questions about the who what when where why and hows of the information it generates.
Detail from the Bundle for Ukraine, is a prompt generator that can be done individually or collaboratively. You first learn a Detail of the setting or location, and then you can optionally roll on a second table titled “Significance”. You could just do the thing of answering self-directed questions about a thing, but you could also use the Significance table to learn about the Detail from a different angle.
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I forgot to update this for like 2 months! Things Took A Turn last week when they blew up a Big Plot Crystal. My intention was that it was going to leak a big plot twist via crystal memory right before reforming and heavily encouraging them to bail…but then the person who blew it up was like “oh sick does it reform with me inside”?
And…uhhhhhh, did you want it to? (Answer: Yes, as long as they get to keep playing the game in some fashion.) I had just written the Chronomagus (basically a time and space caster) for the upcoming 4th Season Pass entry so I decided I had a Big Brain idea for where the fuck to go with this.
Anyway: now they’re playing their same character from the future, having been trapped in that crystal after the rest of the party was defeated until the apocalypse happened, getting infused with Weird Time Magic, and traveling back to save their friends and prevent the bad thing. We’re sorting out the details of what they know over the next few sessions. They’re now level 7 so we’re going to see how well the game works with 4 actions/turn.
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i can’t speak to much here but i like the process in fabula ultima. everyone get to pick a continent to build and a historical event that happened and stuff, it’s pretty fun. you could easily take that process and bootstrap it into another game too
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Do you mean like, building a geography, a history, or something like that? I think Microscope is touted about as a good game to make a history out of a broad pitch but I’ve listened to an Orange Groves AP where they use Spindlewheel to a similar end. There’s also The Ground Itself which stands as an alternative to The Quiet Year for developing a small location over time.
If you are just dealing with a small town, I want to suggest An Altogether Different River, where players divide into two groups: People who left then returned and people who have stayed. The People who are returning describe the things that have stayed the same, and the people who stayed describe the things that have changed. (I’m pretty sure that’s how it works at least lol)
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I have played (and enjoyed) Microscope in the past but I’m not sure how well suited it is to the group I’m going to be playing with - I think they’d prefer something a bit more game-y. 
will have a look at your other suggestions! I’ve heard of The Ground Itself but not really looked into it.
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It’s interesting. We really cranked in on one town when we did it for my ryuutama game, but it didn’t give me whole lot to work with outside of it, but that could’ve been my group
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My Lancer campaign was in a slump for a while, and I decided to finally let it go and announce to the other players that I was unsatisfied with the way things were going and took my leave (we had at least one reunion session to talk about it, I didn’t just randomly drop out).
I will be thinking about running my own game at some point, after a break, though I’m considering hosting a quick one-shot of Brave Zenith next week at one of my servers, a brazilian OSR game that I had no idea I owned.
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Have started reading thru Beam Saber, cause I got it in a bundle recently and it seemed interesting on F@TT. I’d love to maybe run a campaign of it soon, but I’m worried that I just haven’t seen enough mech anime to do the genre justice…
if it helps, my own experience of Beam Saber has been that it’s a lot more Armored Core… core than anime-core! I haven’t seen all the Gundams tho
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Unfortunately I’ve never played an armored core either lmao. Im not sure my pc is good enough to run AC6 and I don’t have the consoles for the older ones. Not sure what the PS3/Xbox 360 emulation scene is like, either.
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oh dang never mind then LOL Beam Saber is a good game, I’ve been playing with a group for a good while now, although I do find it a Bit heavy on mechanics at times.
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Beam Saber having a player class called “The Bureaucrat” whose whole goal is to be a “hiding in plain sight” infiltrator or using red tape and other formalities to swing things in your favor is just great.
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I haven’t got through a lot of mech media - curiously never watched a Gundam - but a lot of them are very centered around corporativism, war, colonization and/or imperialism; Mechs are really a literal extension of pilots, and with that you can extrapolate to a lot of other ideas - literally becoming something else by climbing into a cockpit - and giant robots are also very cool, at the end of the day though they’re very centered on who’s piloting these machines, and who’s funding their development.
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I think I wanted to go somewhere more science fantasy than Beam Saber wanted to go with me. maybe should’ve played Armor Astir instead.
Yeah my exposure to mecha fiction is pretty much just F@TT, gwitch, turn a, evangelion, and xenoblade x. So if people have recommendations for cultural touchstones I’d be happy to hear them.
I’ve been wanting to play Armor Astir for ages because FitD mechanics with the whole base building and development sound like so much my shit.
My mecha experiences are all fairly wack, I’m not even sure I’d call a lot of them touchstones. There’s Gunbuster, which is pretty iconic in a way, but I’m not sure if its terribly relevant. Code Geass is not great but it exemplifies the idea of colonization being a recurring theme. Bokurano is more about how much more fucked up one can make the idea of children piloting a giant robot, but its very much a “suffering anime” rather than a mecha show. Gargantia is also hardly about the mecha itself, more about…learning about war? Or how a war begins? That was a bit of a weird story. And Gurren Lagann is, surprisingly, a good example of imperialism, despite most folks only bringing up the hot blooded action.
I don’t know a lot about recent mecha games aside from AC6, Zone of the Enders 2 is widely available nowadays, though I think the GBA tactics game leaned far more into the oppressed minorities deal. I can’t remember a lot about Steambot Chronicles, and DaemonXMachina isn’t very good.
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